Ease My Aching Heart
by loveshopelost
Summary: Post DH: Harry, Ginny and their friends and family must pick up the pieces & move on after the Final Battle. Discussions of character deaths&some mild langauge. All pairings are those seen in CANON. Please read & review. I appreciate all feedback.
1. Chapter 1

**I have never written a disclaimer for any of my other stories on this site, but I suppose now is as good a time as any, on my first posted foray into _Harry Potter_ fanfiction. So here goes: NOT MINE. The characters, names and places all belong to the immensely talented J.K. Rowling, I am just borrowing them for the amusement of myself and others. That said, please read and review! I appreciate any and all comments I get!**

Harry awoke at dawn the morning after his interview with Dumbledore's portrait to a slight pounding sensation at the back of his head. With a low groan, he rolled himself over so he was lying on his stomach before pushing himself slowly upward, shifting his weight unto his forearms. He opened his eyes with great care, so as not to be blinded by the early morning light that filtered in through the windows and the open hangings of his four poster bed—he never had gotten around to closing them before he had tumbled headlong into the deep, untroubled sleep of exhaustion.

As soon as his eyes had adjusted to the shocking brightness, he moved himself into a sitting position and, from his perch on the edge of his bed, surveyed his former dorm room. There was no sign of Ron, Dean or Seamus, the three other boys having trudged the familiar path with Harry up the seven flights of stairs to Gryffindor Tower earlier the previous morning for a well deserved rest. They had probably woken before him and headed down to the Great Hall for an early breakfast. Harry could not help but wonder idly if Ginny had gone with them.

After Harry had left the headmaster's office, he had staved off his exhaustion long enough to go in search of the one person who had never been far from his thoughts these past ten months, the one person whose memory had him pulling out the Marauder's Map in the wee hours of the morning just to watch her dot as she slept in her dormitory at night. And he had found her too, in the Great Hall squished firmly in between Bill and Mrs. Weasley, her head resting on her mother's shoulder, her and her eldest brother's loosely clasped hands resting on the tabletop.

Harry did not know how long he had stood there, just watching her, his wiry frame crammed behind the intricately carved doors at the hall's entrance in an attempt to avoid, for just a little while longer, the inevitable crush of well wishers and those seeking the explanations to their long unanswered questions: Where had they been all this time? What had they been doing? And how on Earth had Harry managed to succeed where other had tried and failed so many times before him?

As though she were able to feel the heat of his gaze on her face, or perhaps sensing his great need to be near to her again after so many months of forced separation, Ginny had lifted her head from its perch and had twisted her body around so she could see him where he stood partially hidden behind the door. Their eyes locked, and remained fixed on one another for what felt to Harry an eternity. Unable to keep a tired smile from spreading across his face, Harry had tilted his head to the side, silently motioning for her to join him. But rather than rise and make her excuses to her family as he had so easily assumed she would, she'd merely turned away from him and laid her back down against her mother's shoulder as though she hadn't even seen him at all.

He did not know how he would have proceeded had he not been accosted a moment later by Ron and their former roommates, all four of them intent on staking their claim on their former dormitory for some undisturbed sleep. But on the way up Harry could not stop his mind from wandering over all the unpleasant possibilities: Had her feelings for him changed? Was there someone else? Did she somehow blame him for all that had happened? These worries, all encompassing though they seemed, were not strong enough to withstand the smothering blanket of his weariness. But with consciousness all the disagreeable thoughts came flooding back.

And so, his headache all but forgotten, Harry sprang to his feet and began to dress in the neatly pressed and folded clothing that sat neatly at the foot of his bed courtesy of Kreacher, determined to find Ginny and demand to know why she had so steadfastly ignored him the day before.

With a set sense of purpose, he quietly exited his former dorm room, allowing the door swing heavily closed behind him, and picked his way quickly down the old stone flight of stairs only to stop dead at the sight bend in the staircase revealed in the room below. Before the vast marble fireplace, from which the embers of a once roaring fire smoldered brightly out at him in the dim light of dawn, stood a worn wicker rocking chair, it's occupant's brilliant red hair just visible over the chair's high back.

"Try not to slam the portrait closed as you head down to breakfast," Ginny said, startling him, her voice carrying clearly across the Common Room despite its softness. "I finally managed to rock him to sleep; it would be a shame to wake him."

He let out the breath he had not known he had been holding.

"Ginny, it's Harry," he said as he finished his descent of the stairs and moved a few meters into the room before pausing once more.

"I know," came her quiet reply. When she said no more Harry took several more tentative steps towards where she still sat with her back to him, the rocking motion of her chair never ceasing, the creaking sound it made forming a strange melody that hung lightly about them in the early morning air.

"And who is this?" he asked conversationally, trying to keep the mood light, when he had moved close enough to her to see that she held a small baby swaddled tightly in a soft ruby blanket against her shoulder.

"My godson," she said tersely. And then, as though she sensed his confusion, just as she had sensed his presence in the room moments before, she added, "Teddy Lupin."

"_Your_ godson?" he demanded incredulously when the identity of the child was revealed, and as soon as the words had left his mouth he wished with all his being he could take them back—she was speaking to him again after the previous day's unusual silence and the disbelieving tone his voice had just taken on could be enough to wreck things completely.

But rather than get angry, as Harry had expected, Ginny merely nodded in time with the rocking motion of the chair, still refusing to turn her head the few scant inches required to meet Harry's clear green gaze with her deep brown one.

"Tonks asked me if I would be the baby's godmother over the Christmas holidays before he was born. I stood in for the both of us at his baptism," she said simply by way of explanation.

"Oh," Harry said as the icy flood of memories washed over him with the force of a tidal wave. Lupin, Harry's last living link to his parents, arriving at Shell Cottage to announce the birth of his son. Lupin, pulling Harry aside to ask him to be the child's godfather. Lupin and Tonks lying side by side in the Great Hall, pale and lifeless. Their infant son before him, sleeping peacefully in the arms of a young woman who too was experiencing the gaping hole that was left by the loss of a loved one.

"We were always rather close, you know, Tonks and I," she continued on quietly, interrupting Harry's thoughts. "She was so young when we first met her that summer at Grimmauld Place before my fourth year, barely out of Auror training, and we just sort of automatically adopted her into the fold as another surrogate Weasley. She was just so fun to be around, you know? Always talking and laughing and knocking things over. Never once did she treat me like the baby, even though everyone else did—_still_ does. She was one of the only people I could ever really talk to and never have to worry about sounding dumb or chlidish. She was like the older sister I never had. Sometimes I would pretend she really _was_ my older sister. I had always wanted one growing up, someone I could play with and confide in and who could teach me things, girl things, and I remember…I remember wishing that instead of me and all my brothers it was just me and a sister…."

She paused and shook her head slowly, her long, red hair, still as radiant as he remembered it being when she had kissed him on his birthday almost one year ago, shifting slightly over her shoulders.

"And it seems so stupid and so selfish now that I ever could have thought that when I would do _anything_ to have things back the way they were."

Harry did not have to ask who she was thinking of. He knew she was referring to Fred and the gap that was left in her family as a result of his death. And as he moved a little closer to where she sat rhythmically rocking the baby—the son of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, who, along with Fred, rounded out the trio of the departed souls to whom he was closest to in life—he could see the tears of grief sliding silently down her pale face, flowing freely into Teddy's downy hair, and he noticed for the first time that the tips of the baby boy's spiky turquoise tufts were tinged a clashing shade of Weasley red.

"I'm so sorry, Ginny," Harry said as he edged ever closer, his voice cracking with emotion. "This is all my fault; if I had just—"

"Oh, stop it!" Ginny snapped, looking up at him for the first time since he had appeared in the room, the combination of the sharpness of her voice and cessation of the rocking motion causing the infant in her arms to stir in his sleep. "This is exactly why I avoided you last night! I knew that regardless of however much this wasn't your fault you would still try your hardest to take all the guilt and put it on yourself! You always do! Well in the interest of saving us both the torment of having to listen to you agonize over your supposed culpability for all the death and destruction that occurred here that night, allow me to point out that had you not worked so tirelessly these past few months toward defeating Voldemort, still more people would be dead! Not only did you save us all, but you took the sacrifices made by my brother, Lupin and Tonks and made them worth something. And for that I thank you."

And climbing unsteadily to her feet, she headed in the direction of the staircase to the girls' dormitories.

"Teddy and I are going to go take a nap in my room," she said, though not unkindly. "We're both very tired. If anyone comes looking for us, you'll tell them where we've gone, yeah?"

She and their godson had almost made it to the staircase when Harry finally found his voice.

"Ginny…wait," he said, his tone pleading, his mind whirling. She had offered him her gratitude, and though he appreciated it, it wasn't what he wanted and he wouldn't let her go without seeing if there was any chance of him ever earning what he _did_.

"What, Harry?" she asked, turning around as she cradled the sleeping Teddy against her chest, a handful of her bright yellow t-shirt held firmly in his tiny little fist. He could see just by looking at her pale face and purple ringed eyes that her exhaustion was not of the feigned variety, manufactured just to avoid the apparently unpleasant task of talking with him, as he had briefly suspected.

"I'm so unbelievably sorry."

"For what?" she asked warily, her brown eyes dropping his gaze to rest on Teddy's chubby little face which looked so peaceful in slumber. She was tired, that he could see, tired of fighting, tired of loosing the people she loved to the ideology of a deranged sociopath and tired of the constant emotional drain that was being the girlfriend of the Boy Who Lived. And though he couldn't blame her for feeling that way, he had not journeyed to death's door and back just to give up when he could finally have that which he wanted most in the world, and that was her.

"For what?" he repeated softly, his voice incredulous. "For everything. I'm sorry for breaking up with you at Dumbledore's funeral. I'm sorry for not dancing with you at your brother's wedding. I'm sorry for not contacting you once in the past ten months, not even to let you know that we were all right. I'm sorry for letting your mum lock you in the Room of Requirement while everyone you care about risked their lives fighting, and all for my own peace of mind, so _I_ would know you were all right. That was probably the worst thing I have ever done to another person. But most of all I'm sorry for never telling you that I loved you before it didn't even matter anymore."

Ginny remained silent for so long that all the courage he had mustered began to drain away. He was just about to give up hope and slink off to the castle grounds to wallow in his own misery and grief when she said, so quietly her voice was almost imperceptible, "It still matters."

Harry's head snapped around to regard her with a mixture of extreme trepidation and ecstasy—he felt like leaping for joy but feared he would somehow screw this up if he moved even an inch.

"I'm not saying things will go back to the way they were last spring, at least not right away," she cautioned before he could speak. "Too much has passed, and there is still so much we need to talk about. But….I love you too, Harry, and that isn't something I'm willing to give up on so easily."

With an enthusiastic nod of his head and a ridiculously happy grin plastered to his face, Harry crossed the space between them in several large strides and enveloped her loosely in his arms, careful not to jostle Teddy. Her small face came to rest gently at the crook of his neck, her warm, sweet breath tickling his skin as he leaned his cheek against her vibrant hair, breathing in the familiar flowery scent that was so uniquely her. They did not pull apart until Teddy began to wriggle like a happy puppy from in between them.

"Looks like somebody is awake," Harry said with a wry half-smile as he reluctantly released her and looked down at the small face that was peering curiously back up at him.

"I think he's anxious to meet his godfather," Ginny said with a small smile. "He's heard so much about you these past few months."

And leading Harry over to a large, over-stuffed armchair, she showed him how to properly hold the baby before placing the blue-haired child in his arms. After watching them in silence for several minutes, a small smile playing at the corners of her rosebud mouth, Ginny gently wedged her small frame into the chair beside him and Harry wrapped one of his arms tightly around her and rested his chin on top of her head. He could have remained like that forever had Teddy not begun to fuss.

"Give him here," Ginny said gently, plucking the fussing baby from Harry's arms. Within the space of a few moments, Teddy was giving her gummy little baby grins as he gurgled happily, a lock of her long, waist-length hair clutched fast in his chubby hand.

"Don't think don't I see your angle, mate," Harry told the infant with mock severity as he tickled the bottoms of his little feet, which he had succeeded in kicking free of his blanket. "She's mine and I'm not going to let you steal her away from me, no matter how cute you are."

"Sadly it's not me the little guy loves, but my hair," Ginny said with a wry laugh as she ran a hand through the soft red strands. "All babies do."

"Well, he has excellent taste," Harry murmured as he nuzzled the top of her head. "Your hair is the most beautiful I've ever seen."

He was suddenly reminded of the first time he had ever kissed her, in this very room, just slightly over a year ago. He knew that even if he lived to be two hundred years old, he would never forget the way she had looked that day, running at him as he clambered through the portrait hole, brown eyes blazing, her long, crimson hair streaming behind her like a banner.

"Your face was the last thing I saw before he killed me," he whispered softly, not entirely certain why.

Drawing back ever so slightly, she looked at him, her deep brown eyes meeting his green ones and holding their steady gaze for several long moments, as though trying to ascertain the truth of his words.

"Oh, Harry," she murmured softly, her dark eyes fraught with emotion, and before he could stop himself he had leaned forward and captured her full, pink lips with his own in a sweet, lingering kiss.

"I can't believe I almost lost you," she whispered as she rested her head gently against the hard wall of his chest and cuddled Teddy even closer.

"The important thing is that you didn't," he replied gently, holding her more securely within the circle of his arms.

She remained silent for so long that Harry had assumed she had slipped into a peaceful sleep just like their young charge, and was just about to drift off himself when the sound of her voice broke his trance.

"What's it like? Dying, I mean?"

"It's quicker and more painless than going to sleep," Harry said without thinking, echoing the words Sirius had said to him less than forty-eight hours ago.

"Oh," she said, nodding her head ever so slightly, her freckled nose nuzzling his chest. Then, "Do you think they're…happy?"

"I know they are," he replied. "I've seen it, where it is they are going, and it is so peaceful and so beautiful. There is not a place on earth that could possibly compare."

"And when our time comes…."

"They'll be right there waiting."

She nodded again, looking thoughtful, before saying, "Knowing that doesn't make the pain go away, but—"

"—But it is a comfort," Harry said in understanding, finishing her sentence for her. Silence reigned for a few moments before a thought struck Harry and, leaning away ever so slightly so he could see Ginny's face, he asked,

"How is George?"

"Distraught," she replied heavily, her gaze drifting from his as she busied herself with wrapping Teddy's maroon and gold baby blanket more securely about his sleeping form. "It's hit him harder than anyone, even Mum. At least she cries. He just sits there in silence. He refuses to leave Fred's side, and Percy just hovers over them both."

Harry merely nodded his head in silent sympathy as he leaned against her once more. There would be so many people for the two of them to mourn in the coming days and weeks, but somehow knowing that he would have her by his side made the overwhelming depression that had begun to press upon him when he realized whose baby Ginny was holding abate somewhat. Things would not be easy for them, but he knew they would be okay, and that thought warmed his heart and spread contentment throughout him.

Unfortunately for Harry, the feeling was short-lived, for Ron and Hermione chose that exact moment to come banging through the portrait hole, talking loudly about the state of the castle.

"You're off your head," Ron was saying in response to Hermione's disappointment that the library was rendered inaccessible by the large quantities of debris heaped before the entrance, though his words had the air of bemused ribbing rather than cruel hearted mockery. "We haven't had a square meal or a decent night's sleep in months and you're actually worrying over the fate of the dragon leather bound, first edition copy of _Hogwarts, A History_?"

"There you are, Harry!" Hermione exclaimed lightly, tearing her eyes away from Ron's smiling face to rest on their best friend. Her expression immediately softened when she saw how he and Ginny had crammed themselves into one of room's many burgundy armchairs, his arms wrapped protectively around the redhead's slender frame, Teddy slumbering peacefully against her t-shirt clad chest. Harry could almost hear Hermione's inward high-pitched squeal of delight at the sight of two of her closest friends, together again. Ron's reaction was far less gleeful.

"Just don't go getting any bright ideas there, mate," he remarked sourly to Harry, his long, freckled face twisting into a comical expression halfway between a grimace and a scowl.

"Ron!" Hermione scolded, whirling about to give him a resounding smack on the shoulder. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"What the hell, Hermione?" Ron cried, rubbing his smarting shoulder as he fixed his blue-eyed glare on her. "Merlin! You can't possibly expect me to go all teary-eyed at the sight of my best mate snuggled up to my little sister and some random baby, looking all _familial_!"

"Well you could still be a bit more sensitive!" Hermione retorted, her cheeks coloring slightly.

"How you dealt with _that_ for months on end without turning them both into toads, I will never understand," Ginny said to Harry with an expressive roll of her dark brown eyes, her words forcing Harry's attention to shift from where his best friends stood arguing to her face.

"I think Teddy and I'll take that nap after all," she mused contemplatively as she shifted the sleeping infant to her shoulder and climbed to her feet. She had only taken a few steps before she turned to face him once more.

"You coming?" she called softly.

With a tired grin Harry stood and, draping his arm about her narrow shoulders, led her and their godson up the stairs to his dorm room, their exit going entirely unnoticed by the room's other occupants.


	2. Chapter 2

Several hours after they had disappeared from the Gryffindor Common Room with their godson in tow, leaving their friends to their argument, Harry and Ginny found themselves on the dormitory staircase once more, preparing to leave the little bubble of solitude the three of them had so peacefully occupied for what felt to Harry an appallingly short space of time.

"Do we have to go back down?" Harry mumbled softly, his lips brushing over her ear as he pulled her into his arms once more, careful not to upset her hold on their godson, whose amber eyes—the eye's of his father, Remus Lupin—blinked up at them curiously. "I can't help but wish we could stay up here like this forever, just the three of us, no worries, no cares."

"I know," she whispered, resting her soft cheek against his chest for a moment. "But there's no escaping the real world. If we don't rejoin it on our own, it'll hunt us down and drag us back."

She made as though to turn away but Harry didn't release her from his hold, instead spinning her around to face him once more.

"I love you," he said softly, leaning his scarred forehead against her smooth one. "It scares me how much I love you."

"I know," she said again, tilting her chin upwards ever-so-slightly so her lips brushed against his. "Believe me, I know. I feel the same way."

She flashed him a smile, small but undoubtedly genuine, before shifting Teddy to her shoulder and starting down the worn stone stairs, leaving Harry with little choice but to follow in her wake. The scene that met them when they reached the bottom of the staircase, however, was enough to make Harry want to turn tail and scramble his way back up to his dormitory, dragging his girlfriend and their godchild with him.

Arrayed about the Common Room were at least half a dozen witches and wizards, most of whom, with a few noted exceptions, were sporting hair of a fiery red hue and talking so loudly Harry thought it all but a miracle that they hadn't heard them all the way up in the dormitory.

"Oh, Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley cried when she caught sight of them, rushing over to embrace her daughter, who barely had time to disentangle herself from Harry and thrust Teddy into his arms before her mother descended upon her. "We were so worried when we came back to find the Common Room empty and you and Teddy gone! I thought…I thought…."

"Shh, Mum, shh, everything is all right," Ginny murmured soothingly as she returned her mother's embrace. "Teddy and I are both fine; we were just taking a nap in an upstairs dormitory—"

"You could have told someone where you were going and saved the rest of us the trouble of trying to find you," Ron snapped, clearly annoyed, as he glared daggers at Harry, who was unaware of anything he had done that would earn himself the wrath of his best mate.

"You and Hermione _saw_ us leave the room," Ginny said, turning her disbelieving eyes on her brother where he stood with Hermione. "And we wouldn't have had to do that in the first place had the two of you not been sniping away at one other again, so loudly you almost woke Teddy."

"Ron?" Mrs. Weasley asked with a frown, looking at her youngest son expectantly. "Is this true?"

"Don't you try to turn this on us to take away from what the two of you did!" he spluttered at his sister, his pale face bypassing red and turning the spectacular shade of maroon it took on whenever he was particularly angry or embarrassed. Hermione, whose cheeks had begun to glow a bright pink under the combined weight of the stares of all present, looked determinedly down at the garnet and gold carpet as though willing it to rise up and devour her in one fell swoop.

"The only thing we did was take the baby to Harry's dorm for a few hours of rest undisturbed by your grating whine," Ginny shot back, her patience obviously beginning to wear thin. "Just because your mind goes to the gutter at every available opportunity doesn't mean everyone else is the same way!"

Bill, who had been frowning disapprovingly at Harry ever since he had descended from the boys' dormitories with his arms wrapped around his baby sister, looked for a moment as though he were going to open his mouth to speak his agreement with Ron when the sudden tightening of his wife's grasp on his arm from a gentle hold to a death grip made his words die in his throat. Harry did not miss the grateful half-smile Ginny flashed in Fleur's direction, who responded with a wide grin—it seemed the two had grown much closer during Harry's year away, something which could only work in their favor. Perhaps Bill and Ron wouldn't come down on him so hard for dating Ginny with Fleur and Hermione to run interference for them.

"All right, Ron, that is quite enough," Mrs. Weasley admonished absently as she fussed with her daughter's thick red hair, attempting to smooth it back from her forehead.

"Where's George?" Ginny demanded suddenly, moving out of her mother's reach as her eyes scanned every corner and crevice of the Common Room for a sign of the older brother in question, the only one of her siblings, with the exception of Charlie, who was still traveling to England from Romania, who was not currently present.

"No one has seen him for hours," said Percy, who had remained oddly silent throughout the entire exchange. "We were just about to send out a party to search the castle for the two of you when you and Harry came down with Teddy. I think I'll go out and start looking—"

"No, that won't be necessary," Ginny said, chewing her lip in thought. "I think I have an idea where he might be; I'll find him and bring him back."

"I'll go with you," Harry offered hurriedly, not quite relishing the prospect of being left in the same room with Ron, who was now glaring at him murderously, without Ginny's protection.

"No, I'll go alone," Ginny said, and catching sight of her mother and older brothers' faces, hurried to add, "Please. If he is where I think he is and he's avoiding us, it will be easier for me to sneak up on him and bring him back if I'm by myself. I'll be fine, I swear."

Drawing near to Harry, she pressed his hand gently with her own and murmured, so only he could hear her, "I would love for you to come with me, but this is something I have to do on my own, and you should speak with Andromeda."

And rising up on the tips or her toes, she pressed her lips to his cheek, just above the line of his stubble, before ducking her head to place a kiss on Teddy's small forehead beneath his red-tipped fringe. Flashing her family one last reassuring smile, she ducked out through the portrait hole, her back straight and wand drawn. Harry stood quite still for a time after she had left, his eyes lingering on the spot where Ginny had disappeared from view.

"She is such a wonderful girl," said a quiet voice from behind him. "My Dora couldn't have chosen anyone better for Teddy's godmother. You are a very lucky young man. I hope you are aware of it."

"I am," Harry said softly, turning slowly about to find himself face-to-face with Andromeda Tonks, wife of the late Ted, mother to Nymphadora, and grandmother to the orphaned child cradled in his arms.

After this simple exchange an excruciatingly awkward silence stretched on for several long moments, during which the room's other occupants migrated over to stand before the fireplace, loudly discussing the weather and other mundane topics in an attempt to give the bereaved woman and her grandson's godfather some semblance of privacy until their daughter brought back their errant son. Ron, who looked as though he had every intention of staying to listen in, had to be dragged off by Hermione.

Even so, Harry was having great difficulty not only coming up with something to say to her, but looking her in the eye for any length of time. Her face, though he had only seen it once before for a few moments in passing, appeared to have aged rapidly in a way only the wear of great suffering can produce. Her dark eyes, so similar in color and shape to those of her now dead sister, were ringed with purple and entirely devoid of the brightness they had once held. Looking at her was enough to remind Harry once more of the enormity of what they had lost.

"Mrs. Tonks—" Harry began, his voice hoarse as shifted Teddy in his arms to get a firmer grasp on the infant.

"Please," she said gently, cutting him off. "Call me Andromeda."

"Andromeda….I can't—I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for everything that's happened—for all that you've had taken from you in this war. I wish…I wish…."

Clearing his throat loudly to be rid of the enormous lump that had been steadily forming since the conversation had begun, he soldiered on in a valiant attempt to retain his composure.

"Your daughter and her husband meant more to me—to myself and Ginny—than we can ever say, and we will _never_ forget them or their sacrifice, and we plan on seeing to it that no one else will either. Ginny would like to help you plan the—plan the funerals. And as for Teddy—well, I know nothing will ever fill the void left in his life left by the death of his parents, but she and I would like to be as involved in his childhood as you'll let us. We will _always_ be there, for the both of you—if you ever need anything, anything at all, we want you to know that we're only an owl away."

Andromeda gave him a watery smile and, reaching over, grasped his rough hand with her slender one.

"You are every bit as good as Remus and Dora said. I know you have heard this many a time, but your parents would be truly proud of the man you have become."

She stretched out her arms and Harry automatically surrendered Teddy over to her.

"I shall send you and Ginevra an owl in a few days time," she said quietly before exiting the portrait hole, leaving Harry alone with the Weasleys.

* * *

Ginny walked down the once familiar corridors of Hogwarts, marveling once more at the damage the seemingly stalwart castle had sustained during the battle as she wove her way around the large chunks of rubble and sidestepped the decimated suits of armor that littered her path. The shards of glass strewn about the stone floor crunched loudly under the thick soles of her trainers, but she paid most of this little mind, choosing to think instead of her grieving brother and the place she believed he had run to when the pain of losing his twin had become too much for him too bear. But to do that she had delve into her memories, and as she walked she allowed herself to mentally be taken back in time to the day Fred and George had shown her their 'secret spot' at the beginning of her tumultuous first year at Hogwarts when she was feeling lonely and homesick, and they had wanted to cheer her up. 

"_Where are you taking me?" her eleven-year-old self had demanded warily of her two older brothers, both of whom were wearing grins that would put the Cheshire cat to shame. She sighed—she was having trouble enough keeping up with her classes and making new friends; the last thing she needed was to become the unwitting subject of one of Fred and George's practical jokes._

"_Your suspicion wounds us," George said, placing a hand over his heart in faux hurt, his eyes rolling back up into his head._

"_Yeah, don't look so anxious, baby sister," Fred had said, ruffling her flaming red hair affectionately with one of his large hands. "We wouldn't pull a prank on you. Ron? Yes. Percy? Most definitely. But never you. We like you to much." _

"_Not to mention Mum would murder us and make it look like a garden de-gnoming gone awry if she ever found out about it, which she would," George added, his tone jovial as he slung an arm around her narrow shoulders._

"_That too," said Fred his smile widening to obscene proportions._

"_Well I still want to where it is we're going," she had replied, though the look of concern she had worn mere moments before had been replaced by a small smile had wound its way across her freckled face almost in spite of itself._

"_Hold your Hippogriffs," George said, pulling up short and turning to face her. "Before we proceed any further you must swear under pain of ten thousand bat bogey hexes that you will never, ever reveal what we are about to show you to another soul for as long as you live."_

_Rolling her eyes at her brothers' outrageous antics, she diligently placed her hand over her heart and swore to all of the above before the twins, looking left and right down the corridor to make sure no interlopers were spying on the, they brought her to stand before a very large, very ornate mirror she had noticed several before when running through the halls to her various classes. She blinked in confusion at their reflection._

"_You brought me all the way down here to show me my reflection in a mirror?!" she cried lividly, turning on Fred and George with a scowl that would have put their mother to shame._

"_What? No!" George hissed, clamping a hand over her mouth to keep her raised voice from attracting unwanted attention. "Will you just give us a second? Merlin!"_

_He removed his hand from her mouth and she watched in fascination as Fred moved forward and, pulling out his wand, gently tapped the mirror and whispered the words '_speculum deliquesce declaro voster mysteria_'. Before her very eyes the glass seemed to melt away, leaving only a stone archway and the tunnel beyond, which Fred and George hastily ushered her into before the glass reappeared behind them._

"_Where are we, a secret passageway?" she asked in awe, holding up her wand, it's illuminated tip bathing their surroundings in dim light. She moved forward a few steps and saw that the cavern had partially collapsed in on it self and to reach the rest, one had to maneuver their way around the rubble. Without a second thought she shimmied her way through and gasped at what she saw on the other side: all over the dusty and cobweb-covered walls were beautiful murals whose painted figures moved constantly, acting out the faerie stories of her childhood. She had never seen anything quite like it._

"_How did you find this place?" she demanded excitedly, turning to her brothers, who had followed her to the other side._

"_Never you mind," Fred said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye._

"_Do you like?" George asked._

"_Like it? I love it!" she cried, rushing forward to hug them both. "Thank you so much for showing this to me!"_

During her first year she had spent large chunks of time hidden away in the secret passageway, watching the murals act out their tales or writing away in her diary. But as the years had worn on and she making friends had come more easily to her, her visits to the enchanted dwindled until, in her third year, she no longer needed a place to hide from her troubles and had stopped coming altogether.

When Ginny reached the enchanted mirror, which had remained suspiciously intact despite the massive concussions the castle had suffered throughout the battle, she pulled out her wand and, after several unsuccessful attempts, properly repeated the incantation and watched as the glass melted away before her very eyes. As Ginny wriggled her way through the rocks and other fallen debris, she briefly wondered if she were mad to think George had fled here—if she could hardly squeeze her petite frame through the claustrophobic tunnel, she doubted that her tall, broad-chested older brother could fare any better.

Her fears were instantly assuaged, however, when she turned the last corner and was confronted by the sight of figure with flaming red hair slumped against the craggy stone wall, his legs pulled up into his chest, his arms resting on his knees and his face buried in his arms. Sensing that the strong urge she felt to speak to or scold him for making their mother worry would only make matters worse, Ginny instead walked George's side and taking his cold, callused hand in her small, warm one, she wordlessly pulled him to his feet and, coaxing him back through the tunnel, guided him back to the Gryffindor Common Room where their family stood waiting.

* * *

The evening the Weasleys had Apparated back to the Burrow (which, under the orders of Acting Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, had been searched down to the very last cabinet to ensure no rogue Death Eaters were lurking on the premises with the intent to harm the Weasley family, or Harry Potter, who would be staying with them) Ginny, who had not strayed far from George's side since she had brought him back to the Common Room, realized quite quickly that spending time around his visibly grieving family would do him more harm than good. 

As soon as they had they had arrived, the Weasleys, along with Harry, Fleur and Hermione, had filed into the kitchen and taken a seat around the scrubbed wooden table, avoiding one another's eyes as they studied the grain of the tabletop. Despite Harry's attempts to take the seat beside her, Ginny had wound up sandwiched in between her mother, who took every available to fuss over her last born as though she were still a toddler, and George, who clung to her hand as though she were the only thing that kept him anchored to earth, all the while staring unseeingly at the wall opposite to him. With every passing minute, he grew ever more despondent until, unable to stand it any longer, Ginny shoved back her chair and rose to her feet.

"I think I'm going to go lie down for a bit," she told those assembled, gently tugging on her brother's arm to bring him to his feet as well. "Walk me up the stairs, George?"

She led him wordlessly from the kitchen and up the many flights of until they reached the bedroom the twins had once shared. Ignoring the many 'WARNING' and 'DO NOT ENTER' signs that were plastered to the door, she pushed it open and walked inside, George following closely in her wake. She watched silently as he collapsed in a heap into the armchair near the smudged window and was about to leave him to himself and head to her own room when George reached out grabbed her by the hand.

"Don't leave me," he croaked his voice heartbreakingly child-like.

"I won't," she whispered back, curling up on one of the empty beds. "I promise."

Ginny had taken to spending long periods of time in the twins' old bedroom with George ever since. He refused adamantly to set outside the security of those for word and he very rarely spoke but never once did she push him, however much she would have liked to. She somehow knew that any attempt she made to force him to talk would only make him withdraw more deeply into himself than he already had.

And so she sat and waited, her mind wandering from one topic to the next, from the funerals she was aiding Andromeda in preparing to when Hermione would return from Australia with her parents to the next time she would be able so speak with Harry, who had been obligated, after two days of undisturbed rest, to go to Ministry Headquarters to give sworn statements on the death of Lord Voldemort and give testimony against several of his Death Eaters. It was not terribly long before George cracked.

"Aren't you going to tell me you know how I feel?" George demanded of her savagely, speaking for the first time in days. "That Fred wouldn't want me to shut myself away from the world? That he died fighting for what he believed in? That everything is going to be all right?"

"No," she said quietly, not allowing her surprise at his sudden change in demeanor show on the surface.

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Because I don't…know how you feel," she said her voice barely above a whisper as she struggled to keep her emotions in check. "Or what Fred would have wanted. His dying for what he believed in won't ease the pain, regardless of whether it is true or not. And everything is not all right. It probably won't be for a very long time."

George remained silent for several long moments as the meaning of the words she had spoken washed over him before he seemed to melt before her, collapsing into violent sobs that sent tremors through his entire body. When he reached for her she did not hold back, wrapping her arms around him, allowing him to cry on her shoulder as she wept into his hair until, between the two of them, there was no tear left unshed.

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Ginny," he said hoarsely into her shoulder when they had both finished crying. "I don't know how to live without him."

"You'll have to learn," she whispered back through the lump that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her throat.

"I don't know that I can."

"You can, and you will," Ginny said fiercely as she leant back to look at him, gripping his shoulders tightly with her hands. "I'll help you."

"I don't think Harry will appreciate having to share you with your exceedingly needy older brother," George commented as he rose from the bed and moved to sit on a threadbare armchair next to the window.

"Harry isn't the type of bloke to resent my spending time with my family; I wouldn't be with him if he were," said Ginny, regarding him levelly from beneath raised brows. "Besides, you're just making excuses. You can't give up on life, George. I won't let you."

"So it's true then," he said his expression turning thoughtful as he watched the droplets of rain drip down the clear pane of glass.

"What?" she asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

"You and Harry. Together."

"Oh," came her reply. In the insanity of the past several days she had completely forgotten about purposefully neglecting to fill her elder brothers in on the ins and outs of her love life. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"When?"

"Since the end of last school year."

"That long, huh?" he asked rhetorically, his gaze still fixed determinedly on the window. "You know, ever since the Christmas before last Fred knew something up between the two of you. Said if he caught Harry watching you when he thought no one else was looking one more time, he was going to wring his scrawny little neck. I thought he was off his rocker at the time. I mean it isn't exactly an older brother's dream to watch his kid brother's best mate moon over their baby sister, but…."

Ginny merely flushed in response to her brother's words, not quite knowing how she was supposed respond.

"He loves you?" George asked suddenly as he turned around to look at her, watching her face intently.

"That's what he says."

"And you love him?"

She nodded. "I do."

"All right then," George said, nodding his head decisively. "He's a good man, Harry is. I think he'll do right by you, but if he ever breaks your heart, just say the word and I'll hunt him down like mad hippogriff and make him rue the day he was born, all that 'Savoir of the Wizarding World' rubbish be damned."

Ginny laughed softly, forcing down the overwhelming urge to begin crying once more. For in that moment, she could see in him more of the George she knew and loved than had been present for days, and the sight warmed her heart. Perhaps this was a sign that maybe he _would_ be all right after all. And rising from her seat on the bed, she perched herself on the arm of her brother's chair and, wrapping her arms around his neck, hugged him tighter than she could ever remember hugging anyone in her life.

"I love you, Georgie," she whispered, calling him by his rather unimaginative childhood nickname.

"I love you too, Ginger," he said, calling her by hers as he hugged her back.

* * *

Several minutes later found Ginny tripping down the Burrow's narrow wooden staircase on her way to the kitchen. After several days of grief stricken sleep deprivation, George's exhaustion had finally got the better of him and he had nodded off into a light sleep. She most likely would have followed in his lead and dosed off on Fred's old bed had not her stomach gurgled its protest, demanding she go and do the one thing that she had not much felt like doing these past few days: eat. 

She had just hit the first floor landing and was about to scurry down the remaining steps to rummage through the waiting pantry for a piece of fruit when the sound of voices—her brothers' and Harry's—coming from the spare bedroom across the hall from her own caused her to stop and stand rooted to the spot, peering curiously at the shadowy figures just visible beyond the partially open door.

"I don't know what it is you want me to tell you," she heard Harry's voice saying, his tone belying the exasperation he was trying so valiantly to contain.

"The truth," Charlie returned without missing a beat.

"Ginny already told you all there is to know," Harry responded, his irritation growing with every word he spoke. "We took our _godson_ up to the dormitories for a _nap_. We put him down on the middle of one of the beds and then lay down on either side of him so he wouldn't roll off the edge. We _talked_ for awhile about how we could best help _Andromeda_ with _Teddy_ and then we _fell asleep_. When we woke up the three of us came back downstairs to the Common Room were the rest of you were already gathered. That's it. Now if you don't mind, I would like to spend the few hours I've got left until I'm summoned back to the Ministry again with your sister, not you."

Angered flared in Ginny's belly at both herself and her brothers when she realized what it was they had cornered Harry to discuss—she should have known better than to foolishly assume they would take her word on the matter and drop it when she told them nothing had happened between herself and Harry in the dormitory the afternoon before they returned to the Burrow. In the overwhelming crush of exhaustion that had followed Voldemort's defeat, Ginny had been swept away in grieving for the loved ones they had lost and caring for George. She had expected her brothers would be busy doing the same, and so she hadn't spared a moment to consider they would be wasting their time on something so trivial that didn't even concern them. Apparently she should have done.

And drawing herself up to her full height, which was not particularly impressive, she had to admit, she burst into the room, shoving the door back with such ferocity that it slammed into the wall with a loud crash, immediately alerting the room's five occupants of her sudden appearance on the scene.

"What's going on?" she demanded, her eyes sweeping slowly over the faces of Harry, who had spun around on the spot to face her when she entered the room, and Bill, Charlie, Ron and Percy where they stood at the other end of the cramped room.

"We were just…_talking_ to Harry," Bill said, holding his hands up with the palms facing towards her in what he mistakenly thought to be a calming gesture. "There's no need to get upset, Gin—"

"Don't feed me that rubbish; I'm not nearly so stupid as you thing me! Why can't you just leave Harry alone?" Ginny cried, pushing the boy in question behind her as she advanced on Bill. "I didn't chase Fleur down while the two of you were dating and demand to know what her 'intentions' were towards you, and don't you dare try to tell me it's different because you and I both know it's exactly the same!"

"And _you_!" she exclaimed, rounding on Ron. "Don't think that I'm unaware you've been acting as their informant, telling them all you know about my relationship with Harry! Did you ever stop to think that if I wanted them to know, I would have told them, on my own time and in my own way?"

"Well why haven't you then?" Charlie demanded his arms crossed over his chest, the only one of her brothers who appeared unimpressed by both her sudden appearance and her impassioned words.

"Gee, I don't know, Charlie," Ginny snapped sarcastically. "Maybe it was to avoid the very situation we're in right now, with the lot of you terrorizing Harry like a bunch of Neanderthals in some misguided attempt to protect me and my innocence when you should be helping Mum prepare…prepare for Fred's funeral."

Clueless though the Weasley men could often be, they would have had to be both deaf and blind not to hear the hitch in Ginny's voice when she said Fred's name or see her blinking rapidly increase in an effort to keep her tears unshed. Properly ashamed of themselves, they all stared sullenly at the scuffed toes of their trainers or at the peeling paint on the walls—anything to avoid having to watch the struggle of emotions that was playing out across their little sister's face.

Bill made the first move, approaching her with arms outstretched in an attempt to wrap her in his strong embrace like he had so many times before, when he was younger and she was small, and had taken a tumble off of her toy broomstick. But they were no longer little. Things were not as simple as they had been back then, and in that moment Ginny came to the painful realization that they never would be again. Fred was dead, Bill was married, and in a few short weeks was her seventeenth birthday, her coming of age, and already she was being called upon to fulfill her duties as godmother to her dead friend's son. The childhood the seven of them had passed together—talking, playing, laughing, fighting—was over, shattered into thousands of tiny, indistinguishable pieces, and meaningless words soothingly spoken couldn't change that no matter how many times over they were repeated.

"Please don't," she whispered as she began to cry, cry for what it was they had lost, regardless of whether they knew it or not. Harry and her brothers' could only look on, helpless, as the tears wound wet tracks down her freckled face before sliding from her face and onto her t-shirt, the clingy fabric darkening the spots on which the droplets landed.

"Would the four of you please do me a favor and grow up?" she asked sadly before she slipped quietly from the room, her request lacking the venom that usually went along with it. "I have, and it would be nice if you would do the same, for yourselves just as much as the rest of us."

Sparing her brothers an angry glare that said all the things he wouldn't, Harry ran out onto the landing with every intention of following her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

**Okay. I know I said that this story would be a one-shot, but I got such a positive response here, on Live Journal and over at Sink Into Your Eyes, a site devoted to quality it Harry/Ginny fanfiction, that I decided to extend the story and allow the ideas that had been bouncing around my head for possible future chapters see the light of day. I know that there will be at least be one more chapter as I already have part if it scribbled down a few pieces of paper somewhere, though it may be another few weeks before I get around to finishing it up and posting it. That said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and comments and reviews mean the world to me! **

**Edited To Add: I would have added this on to the already existing story file, but FF is having some..._problems_, and I am having difficulties viewing not only by Stats, but any of my already posted stories. My apologies to any and all this has inconvenienced.**

**Edited to Add (Again): FF has deigned to be cooperative once more so I decided to delete the separate file and add the second part to the original. My apologies again!**


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